CHAPTER 1
The Problem and Its Setting
Introduction
It is important for college students to have a well-managed and organized class schedule. As much as possible, they avoid having long breaks in between classes or squeezing in almost all of their classes in three to four days. This is true for colleges and universities that allow their students to freely choose and compose their own schedules. But these things do not come without certain limits – even in schools that have a specific set of schedule for their students who are grouped into block sections.
School administrators are faced with a daunting task of coping with these limits every semester. They have to make sure that classrooms are enough to meet the number of student enrollees and there are adequate numbers of teachers available for the current semester. They have to also consider other factors such as but not limited to the status of the teacher, meeting the minimum number of students per class and other unforeseen events that may occur.
In Centro Escolar University - Malolos, the Office of the Vice President is mandated to prepare the class schedules. They call this as ‘Academic Planning.’ Usually this is done before the start of every semester of the school year. During this time, the deans and program heads of the different colleges and departments submit a list of all the subjects to be offered next year and the professors or lecturers who will teach these subjects.1
But despite the seemingly seamless manual preparation of class schedules, several problems would arise which most of them had been perennially occurring every time.2 Even with appropriate actions taken to solve these problems, it defeats the purpose of planning the schedule early on. This means that even if the planners know the possible problems that would arise and pre-emptive measures have been implemented, it is still prone to errors and setbacks.
Statement of the Problem
This study sought to answer the question on how...